Chapter Twenty-Four:

"Come back here," the Doctor says softly, staring straight forward as he drags a hand over his stomach, clutching the taut muscles there. "I do hope you intend to leave my Hosannah alone..."

He lets it dangle in the air as his only testament.

In reply, the sky opens up.

Clouds spill out of view.

Sunlight streams across the horizon, in little streams of illumining gold.

"OUR BARGAIN IS MADE, OLD MAN..." the Great Old One screams from the rooftops of the universe, bulking up for a big hurrah, somewhere, "... YOU HAVE GIVEN ME WHAT I HAVE ASKED OF YOU. IN RETURN... I GIVE YOU..."

A small, flat something falls from the opening in the clouds.

Buffeted, it teeters on the brink of marriage between high velocity winds and the scraping abruptness of gravity, all to flutter down and down, bouncing from breeze to breeze, nudged by a couple of birds.

It, being a special sort of painting, tipples to a stop at the Doctor's feet, all ornate gold frame and red sky and daleks and Arcadia and all.

He reaches down, and lifts it up.

Then he gasps and looks at the sky again.

"But wait! What about my..."

"Relax, Uncle," Lucifer murmurs in his ear, BAMFing in from Kilimanjaro with frost forming on his eyelashes, "... Hosannah is with the Winchesters and Jack. I just left there. I can... go and get them if you want?" The Devil points nonchalantly with his thumb in a random direction, winking over his shoulder.

"I KNOW THAT! I CAN SMELL THEM ON YOU, LUCY! I MEANT MY WIFE!" the Doctor squeals, running his hands through his hair and scrunching up his chin like a five year old. Jackie tries to pat his shoulder, but he bats her away.

"Oh, them," Lucifer sighs, waving his hand. "River is with Castiel, in Jersey. In a hotel. She said something about... working out the kinks... Gabriel went off to get us some fish fingers and custard to celebrate. Tescoe's, I think."

The Doctor sighs, then raises his hand, and huffs a sentence. "Ah, all right then. Really though, I I meant my ex-wife-River that is. Thought she was already dead, but what do I know? Anyway, I need to give John his glass of water... let me just..."

His squarish fingers raise to his face, brushing water.

Suddenly, the clouds thicken into a roux, draining and pulling and squinting, their lumps flattening out beneath his fingertips.

He holds that hand higher, slowly opening his palm until the clouds drift apart, like lovers in the snow.

The heavy clouds give, breaking their water over the green grass and turning it to glistening down.

"And so does the newborn kill his father, and go to stand beside him!" the Doctor cries, holding up his other hand.

Suddenly there is a bright light, and a tumbler is clutched in his fist.

The rain fills it, crawling up the sides of the glass until the line hits the top and begins to tumble over, in a flood.

Raphael bamfs into place beside him, with Jack. Hosannah is in his arms.

As the Doctor stares up at the sky he's called rain from, the angel claps loudly, waking the child, who cries in her waking, wiggling against Jack's chest as he walks to the Doctor.

"Covenant it is then," Raphael says. With a smile, he looks over at Lucifer, who grins with half a lip, then smacks his own bottom.

The Doctor takes Hosannah to his breast, and when Jackie and Rose bring the twins out to greet their sister, three little faces squeeze up in delight.

Jack reaches out and lays himself down across the Doctor's back, and lies there, absorbing the sun and the rain in equal measure, feeling the Doctor breathe.

"Hey, daddy, mommy," Lucifer says, laughing a little laugh at no one and nothing in particular as he stares hot Asian bullets at the newly-reunited couple and butts in with an arm around each, "... so what's for dinner?"

END